Oil spills on bodies of water subject to a significant current, e.g. rivers, port areas subject to tide flows, etc., are a continuing problem in pollution control, resisting measures that have proven useful on more still bodies of water. For example, deployment of floatable oil sweeps conveniently and adequately contains and sorbs oil spilled on most still bodies of water, but the current in a moving body of water strips oil from the slick that accumulates in front of a floatable sweep and carries the oil under the sweep.
One approach taken by the art in confronting this problem has been to increase the complexity of barriers intended to contain a spill. For example, an article in Chemical Engineering for May 10, 1976, "Oil-Spill Control Nears for Two Pesky Problems," page 76 et seq., describes an illustrative containment boom that consists of rigid rectangular modules having a perforated plate mounted at an angle to the waterline. Oil floating on the surface of the water preferentially passes through the perforations in the plate and into a rectangular basin inside the module, while most of the underlying water is diverted downward. Within the basin, the velocity of the oil/water stream substantially drops to create a quiescent zone, whereupon a thick oil film develops that is then picked up by a pump.
Booms of such complexity are not an adequate answer to the problem. The barriers are expensive to purchase, and they are time-consuming and inconvenient to deploy and recover. Since the barriers are generally intended to be used as a precautionary measure, e.g., they are deployed each time a different ship prepares to transfer oil and then withdrawn after the transfer is completed, the total amount of time and effort spent in handling them becomes very large over the period of their use.
Until less time-consuming and inconvenient approaches are found, there will be a continuing desire within the art for different products and methods.